Eurostar-what to expect?

[ash6605]

Visiting Disneyland Paris in October, we've been before but always flown however this time thought we'd try eurostar(saving us around £800!!)
We are travelling from the North east so have quite a journey and want to stay somewhere overnight before our travel to Paris then again before thè return journey home.
I have no idea where the Eurostar station is in relation to travel from London, nearest hotel, where to park our car while we are away as I've not been to London before so if anyone can advice on the above that would be great :)

Have you booked your Eurostar tickets yet? I'm no expert but would recommend driving that bit further to Ashford station in Kent to pick up the Eurostar. There is definitely on site car parking and I'm sure there is hotels in the near vicinity, think the nearest travelodge is 2 miles away. It might just work out easier than to park at St pancreas, no idea where the nearest long stay parking would be there sorry.

Are you definitely set on driving?
I would suggest travelling by train down to London, I think trains from NE come into King's Cross, then you just nip next door to St Pancras. There's a lovely hotel at St Pancras, although it may eat into your £800 saving

Travelling on Eurostar is bliss. Really easy, comfortable and feels v relaxed compared to flying.
NB - I have just suffered 9 hour flight delay at an airport this weekend, so accept I may be biased. Eurostar still the best for Paris though!

We travelled down from Wakefield to DLP in October. It was really painless picked kids up eldest 2 at 2.30 from school and they were tucked up in bed before midnight at Davy Crocket's lodge. Euro Star was a dream. (see you tube for how it works). Our youngest was 3 at the time. Would certainly do it again. Much less stress than flying with young children.

Eurostar from the NE should be easy as it's a quick walk from Kings Cross to St Pancreas. If you are not getting the Eurostar direct to Marne la Valeé for Disney consider changing in Lille rather than Paris - much easier. We went on Eurostar and it was fab!

You could leave the NE on an early train and be at Disney for tea.

Do you really mean you're planning to drive down to London and leave the car parked there when you get the Eurostar? Definitely not a good idea - long stay parking in London would cost a fortune, if you could even find somewhere near St Pancras. Why not get the train down as well?

There's a great and reasonably priced manned/secure long stay car park in Pratt st, Camden who will taxi you for free to st pancreas station. Can book online. Have used them each time we have gone to Disney and they are much cheaper than station/hotel parking. We usually drive down in early hours to London then stay over on the night of our return and do a few touristy things in London the next day. Usually use the premier inns / travel lodges.

Thank you for all replies. All the tickets are booked now we did it with Hays travel which actually worked out cheaper to do this time than booking separately with Disney and separate transport like we have in thè past. We are travelling from St.pancras yes. I don't drive it's DH that's the driver and he's dead set on driving to London for some strange reason, he thinks that as we have an early morning Eurostar to catch we'd be best off travelling down the day before at our own pace, stopping off regularly to let our 2yr old stretch his legs as he's not the best traveller
Even if I got him to change his mind now I doubt we'd manage to get rail tickets cheap now at this short notice? Unless anyone has any ideas on cheap tickets?(we are a family of 5 so generally cheaper to drive)

As far as I know our train is direct into Disney, nothing has been said to the contrary although we are yet to receive our tickets. It defo looks like a better option to flying as I hate the whole hanging around for 2hours before and after a flight, waiting for luggage/transfer etc.

ash, have a look at the Trainline.com. Don't know when you are travelling but off-peak there are tickets for a family of five for just over £100 at the moment. You would need a 'family and friends' railcard but it would be valid for a year. The train is around 3 hours, it might be worth considering it compared to 5+ hours in the car plus the hassle of parking etc.

Megabus.com also book trains tickets are only released 6 week in advance but i recently went to london from sheffield and return was only 25 pound total. They are direct trains only so definitely worth looking

Sorry that was 25 pound for 2 of us!

Seriously, if you get the train to London from the NE you will come into kings cross which is directly over the road from St Pancras. Then there is either the old railway hotel in St Pancras itself or lots of budget hotels around to stop in, all much easier than trying to drive to central London and pay a small fortune to park there.

Tickets via train line are coming up at over £300

Cheap train tickets are my forte

1. Try the search again using EastCoast's own website as they offer a 10% online discount.

1. Try the search with EastCoast and add a 'Family and Friends Railcard' to the search options, that should pay for itself (I think they're about £28 now) with the first purchase.

1. EastCoast results should show you a much larger range of times than TTL so you can see instantly if it's better to travel a bit earlier/later.

1. If you're desperate I can give a quick introduction to split ticketing... fast version is, try breaking your journey at York (so book two lots of tickets) to see if it's cheaper. If it is then 2YO gets a free trip to the Railway Museum (next to York station) during the two hours, or however long, you need to wait. Sometimes you can get two tickets (e.g. Newcastle-York, York-Durham) on the same train, so no need to change.

1. If you are travelling straight from York, another train company that runs the route and periodically do offers are Grand Central.

PS - I hope that helps and I agree with the others who say driving is madness. If your DH really wants to drive then maybe driving to York, having a wander around the Railway Museum (or wherever) then catching a train to London would be a compromise? Parking at York station would be pricey but there might be cheaper parking nearby - don't think you'll get any cheap parking in London :)

PPS - I should really have paused before I hit post I have just looked up tickets for 2 adults, 3 children travelling with a railcard during the Durham (picked one NE area at random) October half term and it came to £100. I will add that the railcard is only valid for two adults, plus children. If you are more than two adults then it might still be worth looking at railcards to cover your whole group as it may still save you money overall, e.g. combination of Senior & Family railcards.

BTW Family railcards are on offer with redcoats clubcard

Tesco clubcard !

KAZYLOU yes I noticed that thanks! So how does that work? I really am a total newbie to trains! Im guessing you exchange the Tesco voucher(I think it said £14) it gives you the railcard which you can then use to get reduced fairs?

I have approx £36 in clubcard vouchers so I'll try and use it to help me out for this trip